


sleep therapy

by kangeiko



Category: Alias
Genre: Community: fanfic100, Gen, Hiatus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-10
Updated: 2006-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:35:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arvin figures a few things out when Irina Derevko shows up on the scene again. Set during the missing two years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sleep therapy

**Author's Note:**

> fanfic100 Jack Bristow and Arvin Sloane #71 - Broken. My table is [here](http://kangeiko.livejournal.com/113677.html).

This is not murder. It is self-defence.

(also, it's a dream, which makes it entirely all right and not the least bit psychotic)

You keep telling yourself that as you fetch Emily's marigolds, bleach and sponges from the cleaning cupboard to clear up the scene. It takes a long time, and you are on your hands and knees scrubbing the cold bathroom tiles for what seems like an eternity before you can be sure that you have got the last of the blood out.

(now, if it was a _day_ dream, that would be different)

This is not murder, you tell yourself, and regard the body critically. Wrapped in a plastic sheet and dumped in the bathtub, rigor mortis was still some way off yet. You think. You hope. You wonder what you're going to do if it isn't, if it's nearly here, and you have one solid plank of dead flesh to cart around.

You wonder how you're going to fit it into your car and berate yourself for your lack of foresight. Jack would never have had this lapse of judgement, you are sure.

(except – except – )

This is not murder, you tell yourself, and fetch several buckets with loose lids and handles, a pair of gardening gloves and a jigsaw.

It is self-defence.

(which is true, so you stop tossing and turning for a few minutes, and your temperature eases up somewhat)

Once the body is in pieces, it fits much more easily into the boot of your car.

The bathtub – the plughole carefully closed off beforehand – is scrubbed twice as vigorously as the floor to remove the blood and shit and urine that the body passed in the several hours it took you to clear up the rest of the house and prep the car. It takes three bottles of carefully diluted bleach before you are certain that the enamel will not stain, and you make sure to strain each cupful of the bathtub mixture through a sieve before pouring it down the sink.

This is not murder, you tell yourself.

You glance at the clock, somewhat anxious. It's time to pick up Sydney from Emily's mother's house and check on Jack, who has already been told the terrible, terrible news and is now a widower.

You hope that his handler does a good job of selling the official story; that the manufactured bodily remains pass muster of Jack's close scrutiny, and the KGB's. This is one particular woman whose death will never be resolved – case file XUH5362 and a big, fat CLASSIFIED and TOP SECRET across it, thick red letters bleeding across the manila – and –

(and you're going to wake up soon and kick yourself for not fixing it all when you had a chance, those many years ago)

This is not murder.

(you have another chance now and what are you going to do this time, arvin?)

You've never had to kill anyone this close to you before. It's not you. You're not like this, you're not _like_ this. You can't do this again.

You look at yourself in the bathroom mirror and wonder whom you are fooling.

(arvin?)

*

fin


End file.
